The stage was set in the early hours of Wednesday morning Vegas time
for the thrilling climax to the World Series of Poker main event -
naming the surviving nine players for the final table.
At 2.17 in the morning, Fred Goldberg went out in position 10, deciding
the composition of the grand finale. Goldberg lost his crack at the
$12 million top prize, but nevertheless went home with a cheque for
$1 154 527 in his pocket after he moved all-in from the cut-off for
$2.8 million. Richard Lee called in the small blind, showing KK. Goldberg
shows Q3. The board comes 977J8 and it was goodbye to Goldberg.
Play ended for the day minutes later and the final table will convene
on Thursday, August 10th at 2pm PST to decide the 37th WSOP champion.
Final Table seating and chip counts look like this:
Seat 1 - Richard Lee - $11,820,000
Seat 2 - Erik Friberg - $9,605,000
Seat 3 - Paul Wasicka - $7,970,000
Seat 4 - Dan Nassif - $2,600,000
Seat 5 - Allen Cunningham - $17,770,000
Seat 6 - Michael Binger - $3,140,000
Seat 7 - Doug Kim - $6,770,000
Seat 8 - Jamie Gold - $26,650,000
Seat 9 - Rhett Butler - $4,815,000
The day started with 27 players, and by the time the game entered
its eleventh hour the field had been reduced to 10. Professionals
like Prahlad Friedman and Jeffrey Lisandro were eliminated in 20th
and 17th place respectively, but Californian amateur player and ex-movie
star agent Jamie Gold was the captain of much of the action, playing
bold and confident poker. He entered the day as the chip leader with
$13 million in chips and through skill, insight, a series of lucky
flops, good hands, and extremely aggressive play, he was able to more
than double his stack to almost 30 million at times.
He saw off many of the departing players, including Friedman and David
Einhorn, who made headlines with his pledge of his $659 730 winnings
to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. Einhorn
sits on the foundation's board and planned from the beginning of the
main event to donate all his winnings to the non-profit organization.
Gold may have more chips, but the player who increased his holdings
the most Allen Cunningham. He began the day in 13th position with
$2 650 000 and through astute play and good fortune built his stack
to around the $18 million mark.
Online poker observers believe that more than 40 percent of the 44
500 players participating in this year's World Series found their
way to the Rio's poker room via the Internet, winning events and tournaments
on pay-to-play poker Web sites. The prizes were either cash or a paid-for
seat in the world championship event, which costs $10 000 to enter.
Pokerstars.com marketer Dan Goldman opined that the online milieu
makes a major contribution to the global tournament through training
and polishing players and sponsoring main event seats.
"We have this synergy between us. Clearly, we are important
to the World Series of Poker," he said. Goldman's company
has endorsement tie-ins with the last three world poker champions,
Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer and Joseph Hachem.
"There is a percentage of people who are here because they
learned how to play online. They either had some success and won money
to buy in, or they won a seat," Goldman said. "One
way or another, we have increased the popularity of poker in a way
that has expanded the World Series beyond the hard numbers that you
see."
This year's world championship main event alone drew a record 8 773
entries and prize pool of $82.5 million. The winner will take home
$12 million. Online poker backers believe the 56 percent increase
in the number of entries in the final match over last year's 5 619
players is a sure sign of the Internet's power.
"When the initial numbers showed about 6 000 players in
the final event, there is no question the early signups were the result
of what we bring," said Victor Bigio, marketing director
for Loudvision, a Toronto marketing firm that is affiliated with UltimateBet.com.
"We give players the knowledge and skills they need to
play in an event like this."
No matter what happens from this point forward, everyone on that final
table is a winner. The remaining players are guaranteed a minimum
million dollars or more.
PokerWire has the latest chip counts.